


mama said that the sun's gonna shine

by sunkissedstar



Series: Medda Crusade [4]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Adoption, Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Foster Care, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, i would die for her, leave me alone about it, medda's a good mom, thanks for coming 2 my ted talk, the title is from an anson seabra song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkissedstar/pseuds/sunkissedstar
Summary: Jack liked Anthony. He was a sweet kid. He cracked jokes at the dinner table, knew how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch, and he had a wide grin and freckles that scattered his face like stars. He was good at math, he was funny, and he made people smile on their worst days.He was everything Jack wasn’t.~Medda starts fostering Race. Jack isn't handling it well.
Relationships: Jack Kelly & Medda Larkin, Medda Larkin & Racetrack Higgins, Racetrack Higgins & Jack Kelly
Series: Medda Crusade [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1162388
Comments: 7
Kudos: 66





	mama said that the sun's gonna shine

**Author's Note:**

> we're in quarantine and i'm depressed so the medda crusade is back
> 
> this happens right after medda starts fostering Race, but i used his real name in this because he's a little kid and i'm guessing he didn't have his nickname yet
> 
> Jack is 9 and Race is 7, it's been about a year since Medda brought Jack in. enjoy!!

Jack liked Anthony.

Honestly, he did. He was a sweet kid. Jack had known him when they were both in the Refuge; he'd seen himself in Tony and tried to protect him as a brother, but there was a difference between knowing him for five months before Tony got sent to live with another family, and living with him permanently. Two whole years younger than Jack, he cracked jokes at the dinner table, knew how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch, and he had a wide grin and freckles that scattered his face like stars. He was good at math, he was funny, and he made people smile on their worst days.

He was everything Jack wasn’t.

Jack wished it wasn’t true, but he couldn’t deny the fact that Tony had shifted something in their makeshift family. Medda was happier and got to do more things that regular moms got to do; she would watch movies with Tony, make pizza with him, and play with him at the park. And Jack was glad she was happier, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt that he was the reason she hadn’t been happy in the first place. 

“What are you doin’?”

Jack jumped. His eyes shot up to meet Tony’s, who was standing in the open doorway, cocking his head like a golden retriever. 

“What’s it look like?” Jack muttered, throwing some pillows on his bed.

“Well, it looks like you’re cleaning your room, but you never do that, so that’s probably not right,” Tony said. It was set up like a joke, and the smile on his face was so slight that you could’ve blinked and missed it. Jack shot him down with an irritated look. 

“What do you want?” he said, trying to sound busy as he made careful work of smoothing out the wrinkles in his sheets.

“Medda’s takin’ me to a garage sale down the street to look for old video games and stuff,” Tony said, smile falling. He picked at a loose string in his jeans, unraveling a hole that had been slowly growing to the size of a fist for days. “She wants to know if you wanna come.”

Jack didn’t miss his subtle way of saying that he wasn’t the one that wanted Jack to come. Jack shook his head, throwing a blanket on his bed. 

“No, I’m good,” he said stiffly. Without looking, he heard Tony’s feet shuffle on the hardwood floor, then his footsteps turned and disappeared down the stairs. When Jack glanced up from his bed, he was alone and his heart was heavier than it’d been before. 

Jack started making a point not to make messes. He had enough colored pencils, construction paper, and paint in his room to last through the apocalypse, and he’d usually spread it all out on the floor and spend the day cooped up in his room with nothing but his watercolors for company. Now, the most he’d do was pull out a sketchbook to draw, and a single drop of paint on the floor would be scrubbed until the spot was cleaner than it’d been in the first place. 

One day, the demons that haunted his dreams chased him into the night, and he screamed himself awake from a nightmare that clawed its way into his heart and wrapped around his chest, squeezing until he had no air left. He gripped his arms hard enough to leave crescent-shaped nail marks on the skin, gasping for breath until he heard his door ominously creak open.

“Um,” a small voice said, sounding unsure of what to do. Jack looked up and found a shadow standing in the center of his room, which did absolute  _ wonders _ for his nerves.

“You okay, Jack?” the shadow asked. It was Tony, and if the voice didn’t give him away, then it was his curly hair sticking up on all ends and his Captain America pajama pants, illuminated in the soft glow of the moon outside Jack’s open window. 

“Fine,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “Just a nightmare.”

“Oh. I’ll get Medda.”

“No!” Jack snapped, biting the words out through the devil on his shoulder that was screaming for someone he trusted and loved, someone he could talk to and rid him of the haunted memories plaguing his mind.    
  
_ Medda can’t be that person right now,  _ he thought miserably.  _ Not now. _

“No, don’t get Medda,” he said. “Go back to bed, Tony. I’m fine.”

He didn’t feel fine. 

* * *

“Honey, can we talk?”

Those were four words that didn’t belong in a sentence together, in Jack’s humble opinion. They always meant bad things. But since he didn’t have a great track record for listening to his gut, he nodded. “Okay.”

Medda pulled out a chair and sat across from him, tapping her nails on the kitchen table. They were painted a vibrant blue; she’d gotten them done with Tony yesterday. His were purple. 

“I just wanted to check in,” Medda said, smiling kindly at him. “It’s been a few weeks since Tony got here. You holdin’ up well?"

“Fine,” Jack lied. His hands were sweating. He balled them into fists and hid them in his lap, crumpling the fabric of his sweater. “Just… just busy. School and stuff. I’m fine, you can leave me alone about it.” 

Medda didn’t look convinced. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and raised an eyebrow that was better at convincing people to tell the truth than the United States justice system as a whole. 

“Honey, it’s okay to say no,” she said. “It’s normal to not feel right about it all. You haven’t been here for long yourself, it’s not your fault if you’re not adjusted yet.”

She sounded so sure of herself, so positive she knew what she was talking about, but Jack couldn’t find the heart to believe her. He was just being selfish and he knew it. He was sure Medda knew it, too, just wouldn’t say it out loud. He should be happy that she’d brought in another kid that needed help, he should be getting along with Tony, not avoiding him like the plague and ignoring him and being a  _ stubborn little brat that needs to know when to shut up…  _

He shook his head, trying to erase the memory of Snyder spitting the words at him, trying to fold it back into the deep crevices of his mind, but he’d been trying to do that for months. It wasn’t working. 

“Jack.” Medda ducked her head to meet his eyes. “Honey, talk to me. Look at me.” Jack didn’t. “What’s going on?” 

Maybe it was the sincerity in her voice. Maybe it was the tension swimming in the air, seeping through the cracks in Jack’s facade until he thought he’d collapse from the weight of the world on his shoulders. Whatever it was, he’d never forgive it for knocking down the wall he’d worked so hard to build up. The tears started rolling down his cheeks before he could stop them, pooling in his eyes and coming down in waves of frustration, desperation, and panic all at once. 

Medda was alarmed under her mask of calm. “Jack? Why’re you crying, baby?”

_ Why’re you crying, baby?  _ Jack couldn’t say no to her. That’s when he buried his face in his hands and the dam came all the way down.

“I don’t want to leave,” he sobbed, voice cracking on each word. “I don’t want to leave, Miss Medda. Please don’t make me leave. I’m… I’m  _ sorry,  _ I’m sorry I’m so stubborn and - and I get bad grades sometimes, and I don’t make my bed and I’ve got paint stains on the rug in my room but I swear I can do better. I can do better, I’ll… I’ll be quiet and I’ll be better in school and I’ll leave Tony alone, I promise, please just let me  _ stay _ -”

He angrily rubbed the tears tracking down his cheeks, plowing on without meeting Medda’s eyes. He didn’t want to see the resignation, the pity, the embarrassment on her face. 

“I know Tony’s better than me and he’s probably the kind of kid you were lookin’ for in the first place, not a… a kid that sneaks outta the house and wakes you up with nightmares, I just…”   
  
He trailed off when he realized he was repeating himself like a broken record. His chin was dipped almost low enough to touch his chest and the collar of his sweater was soaked with tears. God,  _ why are you so pathetic? _

The voice sounded suspiciously like Snyder’s again.

He heard Medda get up. She crossed to the other side of the table, and Jack tensed up as she stood behind him. He felt like she was holding his fate in her hands. 

Medda’s hand landed on his shoulder, and she guided him to his feet. He wasn’t sure what the hell he was expecting, but then she did the craziest thing and crushed him into her for a tight hug. She held the back of his head and tucked him into her arms, shushing him as he cried. 

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, carding a hand through his hair. “Honey, I am so sorry. I know havin’ Tony in the house was sudden for you, and I should’ve thought to tell you I wanted to bring him in long before I did.” She took him by the shoulders, putting him at arm’s length.

“I didn’t take Tony in because you weren’t good enough the first time around,” she said firmly. “That’s not the reason he’s here. He’s not here to replace you. He’s here because I thought you’d want him around so you wouldn’t be alone.” She smiled sadly at him, brushing some hair off his forehead. “I thought you might like the company."

Jack just stared at her blankly, and Medda’s smile got more sad.    
  
“Even if you and Tony aren’t gettin’ along, I’m not sending him back to the foster system,” Medda said. “He’s still just a kid that needs help, and I don’t want to put him through that. But if it doesn’t feel right between you two, I’m sure we can work somethin’ out.”

That… wasn’t even what Jack wanted. He wasn’t really sure  _ what  _ he wanted, but for Tony to leave definitely wasn’t it. He thought that if his brain was an office, this was the point where the building would catch on fire and everyone would run around screaming like headless chickens. He was like a broken computer -  _ jack kelly.exe has stopped working. _

“I don’t want Tony to leave,” he said slowly, because that was the one thing he could make sense of. 

“No problem,” Medda said, rubbing a soothing hand up and down his back. “He wasn’t goin’ anywhere, anyway. He’s a good kid, isn’t he?”   
  
“Yeah,” Jack said, rubbing his raw, red eyes. He hated the feeling of tears drying on his cheeks. “Yeah, no, he is, but I just… I thought…”

He trailed off, but Medda understood. She silently finished his thought by bringing him back into her arms. 

“That don’t mean you’re any less of a good kid, though,” she said, chin brushing the top of his head. “You and Tony are different. You’re both comin’ for different places, different lives, different parents, and I never once thought you two would be the same.”

Jack hummed. “You should write a parenting book.” Or better yet, Snyder could write a parenting book called  _ What Not to Do. _

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that when I’m more than a year into this whole ‘parenting’ thing,” Medda said. “Listen, Tony is at his friend Albert’s house for the night. We’ve got ice cream in the freezer, and it’s been too long since we had a movie night.”

And that’s exactly what they did. When Tony came home the next day, he found Jack and Medda fast asleep on the couch, a tub of chocolate chip ice cream wedged between them. Tony grinned and tossed a blanket over them, then took a picture for good measure. 

He sent the picture to Albert on his iPod with the text  **‘i think this is gonna b a good family :)’** right under it. Medda and Jack didn’t wake up until noon, but when they did, Tony wasn’t the only one floating on Cloud Nine.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope u liked it i wrote it at 10pm while crying  
> thanks for reading and i hope you're all staying safe and healthy, i love you!! bye :)


End file.
